I know because I didn’t do this to Baby. Hmm. HEIDI!!!!!
New Adventures with Gum Paste
I decided to create my daughter’s birthday cake’s decorations from Gum Paste this year. I’ve wanted to try it for years and finally dug in. I made my own red and green gum paste from wilton’s glucose and gum-tex. I made the white from Marshmallows and gum-tex. While they both taste okay, the marshmallow gum paste is by far the best (I added a touch of almond extract.) They were both very easy to work with as long as I had my tub of shortening nearby to grease the bowls, cutters and my hands.
I can’t decide if this was a frugal hobby to start or not :P. I had to buy the glucose, gum-tex, fondant tool set and flower creator set. I used 40% off coupons at Hobby Lobby and kept going back until I collected each item I needed. This was by far the most affordable way to shop. I compared prices with Amazon, Ebay, and Jo-Ann before buying.
The nice part is I have plenty of glucose and gum-tex left to decorate many a cake and the tools will last forever if I take care of them. I’d love to make my mother a beautiful rose covered birthday cake in October. We’ll see how hard they are! I’m also invisioning cupcakes with single gum paste daisies on the top :).
I glued the tops to the strawberries with a homemade edible glue. The recipe is 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiled water and 1 tsp gum-tex. Mix it all up and let it sit in the fridge. The lumps will disappear overnight. I didn’t wait for the lumps to disappear and just dipped my paintbrush in and around them. It still worked great.
The centers on the strawberry blossoms are a dot of glue and a dot of yellow sugar. So pretty and sparkly! I brushed some of the leaves with green pearl powder for shimmer. I texturized the leaves by pressing them into a silk flower leaf. I think I’ll put a leave texturizing plate on my birthday list. The silk leaf did okay but the texture is more subtle than I was hoping for.
P.S. In my research for this project, I learned the difference between gum paste and rolled fondant is just a little gum-tex. This makes the gum paste creations dry hard while fondant will stay soft and pliable. I also read that you can use denture powder instead of gum-tex, but Wilton’s gum-tex at Hobby Lobby with a coupon was more affordable and it made me feel better that it was actually created for the purpose. (The denture powder had warnings on it about swallowing too much!)
Goodbye Fritz
I had to make the hard choice today to give Fritz a new home. Life is overwhelming right now and as much as I loved him, it was one area I could simplify. He requires being sheared every 2 months and recently I’ve been putting it off too long until he gets matted all over. He deserves better.
I found out a good friend of mine bought a pair of English Angora rabbits for her farm and I offered her our German/Satin cross. She agreed to take Fritz and gave him a lovely home amongst her other animals. It was fun to find out that she loves to spin too. And even has a big loom.
I expected the children to be sad. Dub cried hardest of all. But I didn’t expect me to be so sad. I know it’s for the best, but I feel the loss just the same. I know I can go and visit him if I need to…but it doesn’t feel better yet. I thought tonight–“I should go and feed and water the rabbit and give him a love.” Then I remembered he wasn’t there. I thought I would feel relieved, but didn’t.
I think I did the right thing. Did I? Time will heal.
Grant’s 2 Months Photo
He’s a Happy Guy!
Last Day of Family Month
Where did June go? Ours went to family camp and swimming lessons. I’m hoping the rest of the summer is a little more…well…lazy. On the blog here, I scheduled to venture into the land of freezer cooking. But first I’m going to run a series on frugal beauty treatments. If you have experience in either subject that you’d like to share, I’d love to carve out a spot for a guest post for you.
The final thought I’d like to leave you with for family month is the importance of sitting down together as a family for at least one meal every day. We do it for dinner, but some other family situations (like farmers) may find lunch or breakfast a better choice. At this meal, eat at a real table without a television. Try to keep the conversation positive and don’t use it for a time to correct behavior for the day. Ask each child a question to answer that will help the entire family get to know them better (like what’s your favorite color and why?) This also might be a great time to read a chapter of an exciting read aloud book together. We like manner’s books and stories such as Little Fella or The Boxcar Children.
To finish up Family Month here’s a summary of all the posts we had:
Family Night
I admire LDS Monday night Family Home Evenings. As a church they set aside that night to plan a speical worship and family activities in their homes. Whatever you may think of their religious beliefs, when you meet an LDS youth, you can expect them to be modest, clean living, and have a close family bond. I’ve allowed my evenings to be over committed. One day Darren and I sat down and found we only had one day at home as a family, Wednesday night. And that night we really should be at church! I’m searching for ways to lighten our schedule and dreaming of a weekly family night.
Setting apart one special night a week to play together and learn together is a fantastic way to pass on your values and build a close bond with as a family. Here are some ideas for things to do on family night:
1. Learn a new skill such as how to set up a tent, cook a special dish, or do a craft.
2. Watch a family friendly movie and talk about it together.
3. Play board games
4. Have a family olympics with crazy games
5. Have a water fight
6. Have a paper airplane contest
7. Visit a park
8. Have a bubble gum blowing contest
9. Plant a flower bed together
10. Visit an elderly person and take a treat to share
There are only a few rules for family night: Plan an activity that everyone can participate in, then insist that everyone does! Be sure to end the activity while everyone is still having fun.
Practicing Life
Have you ever thought about how baby animals are born essentially knowing everything they need for survival, while baby humans are completely dependent? Many babies even lack the skills they need to eat! As a first time mom, I was shocked how much I needed to teach my child. How to eat was just the beginning. Anything I wanted her to do, I had to show her.
Imagine you are hired for a new job. You are so excited to start work that first day, but are a little confused when there is no job training session. Your boss puts you in a room, shuts the door and expects you to work. When he comes back, he is displeased with your performance and shows you everything you’ve done wrong. Humiliated and frustrated you try again the second half of the day. You manage to remember to correct some of your earlier mistakes, and make a whole set of new ones. Day in and day out you go on expected to perform and are punished and humiliated when you fail. Since you don’t know the expectations ahead of time most of the day you feel like a failure.
I wouldn’t last long at a job like that. I much prefer to be trained thoroughly in advance so that only minor corrections are needed later. As I thought about it, I realized I had been treating my children like the boss that didn’t train. We’d go to the grocery store and the kids would walk in a pack, blocking aisles, hiding in clothes racks, playing tag and getting in people’s way. It was embarassing and I was frustrated with them. They weren’t born with essential social skills, but I expected them just to “know” them.
Finally after an especially bad trip, I took them home and we practiced shopping there. We learned how to walk in a line and respond to simple commands such as “single file” and “cover down.” I also talked to them about what might happen if they play tag and break something or knock an old person down. The children proved that they were pretty smart when it was brought to their attention. We trained in this fashion pretty frequently for a few weeks and we talked about what I expected all the way to the store. It was almost fun to take them all out and about and show off their new skills!
Shopping practice worked so well that we practiced other things too, like how to act at a baby shower, a birthday party, a wedding and a funeral. No more was I embarrassed that my child thought she should help the guest of honor unwrap all the presents! And my children were relieved too. It was comforting to them to know what behavior was expected and that they would not be in big trouble when they got home.
Practicing life isn’t hard. Simply set up a mock situation at home, practice the important behaviors you want them to know (like how to open a gift and say something truthfully nice no matter what it is.) Then on the way to the actual event, talk about what you practiced so they won’t forget.
Book Review: Couples Who Pray
As part of a preferred blogger with Booksneeze.com, I received a complementary copy of Couples Who Pray: The Most Intimate Act Between a Man and Woman to review here.
I chose this book, because though Darren and I have strong individual prayer lives, and pray nightly with our children, we rarely pray just he and I together. It is hard for me, because it feels so personal. I know it’s strange. How can I have 6 children with someone and still find it hard to pray with he and I alone? I can’t explain it, but I’m ready to fix it.
The book is written by husband and wife team, Squire Rushnell and Louise Duart, both on their second marriage and determined to remedy the mistakes that made their first marriages fail. The text of the book is 164 pages with an additional appendixes of questionnaires taking the book to 200 pages. It includes 3 sections: Major benefits of Couples Praying Together; Taking the 40 Day Prayer Challenge; and Factors During Your Forty Days. Inside these 3 sections are 10 chapters: 1. Naked Truth: Marriage’s Most Intimate Act 2. Prayer and Communication 3. The 40 Day Prayer Challenge 4. How do you do it? 5. The remarkable power of prayer 6. The Devil is the real enemy of your marriage 7. Forgiveness Power 8. Prayer and Money 9. Six steps to a happy marriage and 10. Outcomes
I’ve been impressed with what I’ve read so far. It’s full of encouraging stories of what has happened to couples who accepted the 40 day prayer challenge. Many of the couples are celebrities, such as Denzel Washington, and it was refreshing to read about their faith. The stories are engaging to read and motivate me to push through the uncomfortable feelings to strengthen my marriage and family.
I like that there is a companion web page to the book to help you track and journal what happens when you pray. There is a before and after questionnaire that shows the contrast in your relationship after 40 days of prayer which can be filled out in the back of the book or online.
I recommend taking turns reading a page of the book aloud with your spouse, right before your prayer time together. Praying with my husband is getting easier, but if I skip one day, it’s easy to skip another and another until I’ve blown it. We are gearing up to start our 40 days again.
Talk Time
Thursday I promised to tell you a simple secret that I believe prevented my brother and I from rebelling as teenagers.
From the time when I was about six my father would have talk time. After prayers when we were tucked safely in bed, he would come and sit beside me in the dark and talk and listen. And then move to my brother’s room and do the same.
Sometimes we would talk about what I did during the day, or he would tell me a story from his childhood. It didn’t really matter what we talked about, just that we talked. There was 1 rule: I had to keep my head on the pillow. No propping up on elbows to visit better. This was not only a time to build relationships, but to relax and encourage sleep.
Also, I don’t remember ever being chastised during this time (except for reminding me to keep my head on the pillow.) It was a time that I looked forward to at night.
These things made me content with in my family’s rules as a teenager:
1. I had a voice and was heard.
2. I had a close relationship with my parents because we talked.
3. When I asked for advice, my dad would always reply, “What do you think you should do?” And after we discussed all the options, he would reply, “Whatever you decide, I know you’ll make the right choice.” And he left me to that choice and the consequences.
4. My parents had very high values, but not strict rules. They didn’t require that I dressed vastly different from my peers as long as I was modest. They told me as a child that I could date when I was 16 and when we learned about courtship when I was 15, they left that decision up to me.
5. I felt that they respected my individuality and tried to deal fairly. If I felt a decision they made was unfair, I could appeal to them to reconsider. They would hear me out and though it may not change their decision, I felt my views were fairly considered.
I didn’t need to rebel, because I had relationship and acceptance at home with people who valued my intellect and opinions. And part of that relationship was founded in talk time.
Family Devotion Time
Evening family devotions is one of the most important things a family can do. I’ll tell you a story that illustrates the importance tomorrow.
Evening devotions doesn’t have to be fancy or require preparation. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time either. Sometimes when it’s late our family devotions is just a prayer time. We take prayer requests and then everyone takes a turn. On REALLY late nights, we divide the children into Boys and Girls and Darren and I split up to say prayers with one of the groups.
On an ideal night, we all gather in the living room and find a comfy spot. We practice the hymn we are learning and then Dad reads a story from Arthur Maxwell’s Bible series. We love the realistic pictures and the conversational way Maxwell tells the stories. We finish off the devotion with prayers.
When we tuck the children into bed, we do something important. I believe it is the thing that kept my parents and I close through the years, especially the teen years. And it is my personal belief that a strong connection between parents and children can prevent rebellion in the teen years. I’ll tell you the secret Saturday.